The Corner Office

This is an article by guest blogger Jorg Stegemann.

Human Resources directors and professional recruiters will tell you that age makes no difference when you are looking for a new job. Baby-boomers who have lost their job will often say the contrary. But what does the truth really look like? Are you really finished as a 50+ for a corporate career?

Myth and truth about 50+ knowledge workers

Prejudices say that older workers are not as flexible or tech savvy as younger ones and will be more often on sick-leave. Statistics, however, do not confirm this: Older employees have in fact a much lower sick-leave level. They are also five times more loyal than Gen X or Y. In terms of performance, an OECD survey concluded that communication skills and intelligence remain unchanged as a person ages. When it comes to problem solving, good judgment and leadership, boomers clearly score better than their younger competitors. A recent Harvard University study showed that the ability to use an accumulated body of knowledge keeps rising throughout the lifetime of a healthy person. Better quality of work and better decision-making is a direct result on longer experience – another point where 50+ score better than 50-. Furthermore, the most successful (and largest) group of new entrepreneurs are over the age of 50 (Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity). Read the rest

The Corner Office believes in telling the truth – especially on your CV. We know it’s wrong but 53% of candidates falsify information on their CV. Just this last week,  a CEO of a major website resigned. One of the reasons given was that he stated he had a specific degree when in actuality he didn’t. He tried to blame it on the placement firm but at the end of the day he should have double checked.

Jobseekers know that the market is tough right now. How do you differentiate yourself in just one A4 peice of paper? Even though the temptation is there, hiring managers all agree that they would automatically dismiss a candidate if caught fabricating the truth. Rather than not telling the truth, focus on the things you do well. We’ve looked through our files and found some other things you should leave off your stellar CV:

1. Your picture
Unless a job posting specifically asks for your picture (and very few jobs will), don’t include it just for fun because your looks are irrelevant to your potential as an employee.

2. Interest and hobbies
Unless your interests and hobbies have something to do with the job you’re applying for, there’s no reason to include them. In general, make any applicable connections between your hobbies and the job in your cover letter. Better yet, save them for the interview when you’re asked what you like to do outside of work.

3. Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors
Most employers assume that if you’re OK with sending out a CV littered with typos and mistakes, you’ll have the same lack of concern for the work you do as an employee at their company. While spell check picks up most errors, it can miss something major — did you work the late night shift? Or did you forget to include the “f” between “i” and “t”? — so have several eyes look over your CV before sending it out to employers.

4. Personal attributes
Similar to sending a picture with your CV, your height, weight, age, race or religion are all unimportant to an employer. Though it’s illegal for employers to discriminate against applicants because of any of these factors, some will do so, regardless. Keep everything on your CV pertinent to the job, and you’ll be fine. Read the rest

Do you dislike the idea of a job for life? Perhaps you have simply reached the end of the road in your current job and you want to do something more rewarding and fulfilling instead.

Whatever the reason might be for considering a complete change of career, it makes sense to boost your chances of making the leap. Here are some tips to help you feel more confident about your chances of switching careers.

1. Know which direction you are heading in.
Knowing you want to leave your current career in favour of another one is not enough. You must know which career you want to step into. This knowledge will allow you to explore what skills are required for your new career, and whether you need any new qualifications.

2. Can you switch careers while staying with the same employer?
This is more likely to be possible if you work for a large employer with several different departments. For example, if you work on the shop floor at a major chain store perhaps you could switch to working in HR instead. There are lots of businesses big enough to incorporate lots of different working roles. Consider this route first – if there is nothing else you would enjoy doing you can start looking at other career paths instead. Read the rest

A strict schedule where you clock in at 9 a.m. and clock out at 5 p.m. is ideal for some professionals. You can schedule events easily when you know that you’re busy for only those eight hours.

Not everyone can do that or even wants to. Routine doesn’t sit well with some people who like a little variety in their lives. For other people, that particular eight-hour block of time conflicts with other plans. School, family obligations and part-time jobs often mean working 9 to 5 is impossible. Of course, just because these jobs have different hours than most others, don’t think these are easy jobs.

If you’d prefer to have a schedule that offers different hours, here are 8 jobs to consider:

1. Chefs and bakers
You might not eat lunch until noon, but someone had to start preparing it long before you sat down. Chefs get up early to get the freshest ingredients from local markets and to start chopping vegetables and marinating dishes so they’ll be ready for you. Bakers also need time to make all those delicious baked goods you scarf down in a few seconds. While you were still snoozing, a baker was making those pastries you picked up on the way to work. The next time you pass by a restaurant or bakery that is closed in the middle of the day, realize that they were working long before you were.

2. Construction workers
Construction work is tough for many reasons, one being the weather. Imagine wearing protective gear while building a skyscraper on a hot summer afternoon. To avoid spending their entire day in dangerous heat, construction crews often start working before the sun rises so they can be done early. It’s safer for them and means they’re heading home before most 9-to-5 workers call it a day.

3. Nurses
Nurses in hospitals are there for the patients around the clock all year long. Naturally, no single nurse can cover every shift alone — and they’re often long shifts — so someone needs to be there during the day, late at night and in the morning.

4. Home Carers
As a home career you look after people in their own homes and assist them with whatever they may need help with. This may start in the morning with dressing, personal care, during the day you do some housework duties and prepare meals. There are different shifts throughout the day and also during weekends. Read the rest

Some industries tend to be affected more than others during a recession, and while some have been hard hit, others are experiencing growth. Here are five areas that are performing well and set to be hiring now and in the future.

IT and communications

Technology is one of the strongest growth sectors and shows the highest demand for staff, with CAD, CAM, developers and general IT skills in short supply, according to the latest Report on Jobs from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation and KPMG.

The findings are also backed up by Barclays Job Creation Survey, which found that 78 per cent of companies in the industry are planning to create new jobs within the next 12 months — more than any other field.

Technology is also leading the way in Scotland. According to a recent report from trade body ScotlandIS, the software and IT industry is growing faster than any other area, with nearly two-thirds of IT and telecoms firms in Scotland planning to take on more staff in 2012.

Renewable energy

Last year the government invested £5.7 billion in renewable energy (such as wind, wave, solar and biomass and energy from waste), potentially supporting tens of thousands of new jobs. They plan to spend billions more in order to see the UK capable of delivering more than 90 per cent of its renewable energy by 2020.

The UK is now a real player on the global stage. In February Ernst & Young ranked the UK fifth in the world in attractiveness to renewable investors, up one place on the previous year — more good news for job seekers thinking of entering the industry. Scotland is also looking to the sector to provide jobs. According to a report by Scottish Renewables, renewable energy will be a major source of investment in the near future.

Green skills feature highly on the list of global skills most in demand by Hays Recruitment. Their report states: “This is a fairly new area, but a growing one, with particular demand in the green energy and construction sectors across all regions.” Read the rest

The world is a tricky place now – technically we are in a double dip recession, pay day feels a million miles away (but just happened) and work is asking you to do more with less. The Corner Office would consider this all pretty stressful. Lots of articles are written about how to avoid stress. But is all stress considered bad?

According to Tony Schwarz of The Energy Project and blogger for Harvard Business Review, no, all stress isn’t considered bad. Mr. Schwarz says, “We live by the myth that stress is the enemy in our lives. The real enemy is our failure to balance stress with intermittent rest. Push the body too hard for too long — chronic stress — and the result will indeed be burnout and breakdown. But subject the body to insufficient stress, and it will weaken and atrophy.” Schwarz goes on to describe that we lose an average of one percent of muscle mass per year after thirty. By keeping constant stress in your life, you can bolster yourself (physically and mentally) to prevent that loss.

Keeping with the idea that all stress isn’t bad, we can all reflect on when and for how long we feel stressed. Do you feel like your heart is racing all day long? Is it only in the morning during your commute? Once you evaluate when and for how long you are stressed, you can find a solution.

To get back to basics, how can you avoid the chronic stress? I can hear you laughing – yes, it is possible. The normal rules apply:

1. Keep physically active – This will help you burn off that angst Read the rest

CareerBuilder, the leader in human capital solutions, continues to grow its European business with the acquisition of Top Language Jobs (TLJ), the leading global online jobsite for multi-language jobs and candidates.  TLJ operates more than 40 sites in 25 countries across Europe and in the U.S. The primary site www.toplanguagejobs.co.uk can also be accessed by using the .com domain. 

Language skills are in demand worldwide.  According to data from TLJ, job postings requiring multiple language skills continue to increase across Europe with over 120,000 job listings in France, the U.K. and Germany alone — and more than 200,000 in total. In the U.S., there are more than 180,000 job listings with a language skills requirement.  

“Entering the ever-growing global language jobs market presents a strategic opportunity for CareerBuilder since many companies today rely on multilingual workers as they expand into new economies,” said Tony Roy, President of CareerBuilder EMEA. “It gives our clients access to a new diverse pool of bilingual and multilingual job seekers to fill their open positions. Job seekers, in turn, are able to explore opportunities in markets around the world.”  

According to a 2007 Nielsen Report, more than $83 billion is spent by consumers every year to acquire language skills. TLJ allows customers and candidates to search from 72 primary languages and hundreds of dialects worldwide. Read the rest

In a recent article in HR Magazine, Google was highlighted as the most desirable employer who graduates want to work for. Why? Probaby for their amazing benefits, cutting edge projects and has global brand recognition. What other companies were on the list? Big brands, charities and governmental intelligence servies. Click here to read full article.

To see all Google jobs on CareerBuilder, click here.

Interviews are designed to do just one thing: identify the best possible candidate for the advertised job. And sometimes it may feel that the questions being asked have been designed to deliberately catch you out or make you question whether you are up to the job or not.

But that’s not their intention. Some questions aim to establish how well you cope under pressure, others will be to reveal your personality or to see what your career aspirations are. Just remember that there is no need to draw a blank or clam up if you have done your research and preparation beforehand.

If you want to avoid an interview disaster, here are some of the toughest interview questions and their suggested responses.

Q: “Tell me about yourself”

This is perhaps the most open-ended question of them all and is typically used by interviewers as a warm-up question to give you the opportunity to shine. But resist the temptation to start talking about your life history. What your interviewer is looking for is a quick two or three minute snapshot of who you are and why you are the best candidate for the job. So keep your response relevant to the position you are applying for. For example:

A: I started my media sales career five years ago as a telesales representative, rising through the ranks before gaining promotion to sales manager three years later. I am now responsible for training and developing a team of 15 sales consultants that are currently the company’s best performing sales team.

Q: “What are your salary expectations?”

You should have done some research into the average salary and remuneration that this type of position will pay. Try to deflect the question by turning it around and asking the interviewer about the salary on offer. Typically, they will start with a lower figure than they are prepared to offer because they want to keep their costs down. So if you are pressed to give a number, its best to give a range to avoid pricing yourself out of contention. For example:

A: I’m sure whatever salary you’re paying is consistent with the rest of the market average of £23,000 to £25,000.

Q: “Why should we hire you”

This can be a killer question and can make or break your chances of winning the job. And how you answer will depend on how well you have probed your interviewer about their requirements and expectations. So what the interviewer is really asking you is, What can you do for my business? Your response needs to answer that question. For example:

A: As I understand your needs, you are first and foremost looking for someone who can increase your advertising sales and has experience of managing a sales team. I have a proven track record in successfully managing and developing my territory within this sector, having increased my sales from £150,000 to £210,000 over the last two years alone.

Q: “If you were a car … tree … animal what would you be?”

Baffling though it may seem, some interviewers still insist on asking silly questions, such as If you were a car, what type of car would you be and why? There are no right or wrong answers. The interviewer is simply testing your reactions under pressure to see how you will cope with the unexpected in an attempt to gain an insight into your personality and how you view yourself. Don’t get hung up on the implications of what type of car you say you would be, just be mindful that you will be expected to explain your choice. For example:

A: I would probably be a 1962 Alpha Romeo Spider — classy, stylish, driven and fast off the mark Read the rest

According to the most recent ONS release, unemployment in the UK fell by 35,000 in February! Check out this very informative graphic from the BBC to see how your area fares. The drop in employment means that companies are hiring and people are getting back to work. As always, see below for the companies we are showcasing this month.

Tragus Group
Formed in 2002, Tragus is one of the UK’s largest independently owned restaurant operators with over 285 sites across the country serving over 21 million meals a year. The portfolio of leading brands are operated as four divisions — Café Rouge, Strada, Bella Italia, and the Brasseries — with offerings ranging from pizza and pasta to French classics.
Available positions: Tragus is hiring Head Chefs, Sous Chefs, Assistant Managers and Managers for their four divisions across the UK.

H&M
H&M today operates in 38 countries and sells clothes and cosmetics in around 2,200 stores around the world. About 76,000 employees worldwide work for the Swedish company.
Available positions: H&M is hiring store and floor managers, visual merchandisers and sales advisors across various locations in the UK.

Bupa Care Homes
Bupa Care Homes is part of Bupa, a leading international healthcare group. Bupa has over 300 care homes in the UK, offering expert residential, respite and nursing care, and specialist homes in dementia and other conditions.
Available positions: Bupa offers jobs for managers, carers, nurses and support workers in different care homes throughout the UK.

Rackspace
Rackspace Hosting is the World’s leader in Hosting and Cloud Computing.  Since 2001 Rackspace has been hosting and supporting mission critical websites, internet applications, email servers, security and storage services for 6,000 customers.
Available positions: Rackspace is hiring mostly in London in the areas of IT, Sales, HR, Finance or Tech Support.

Betfair
The Betfair group of companies (‘Betfair’) offers a global portfolio of gambling products and services. This includes the world’s leading betting exchange (a concept pioneered by Betfair), which is provided in the UK.
Available positions: Betfair is hiring in the areas corporate, marketing, products and services, technology and they seek talented graduates for their graduate programme. Read the rest